Heat

It's a brilliant book, a high-brow kitchen soap opera

Daily Telegraph

I lingered over every sentence like a heavily truffled risotto

Anthony Bourdain

I have never read a funnier or more authentic account of the making of a serious cook. Give Mr Buford three stars

Peter Mayle

A dazzling and fun account of two magnificently mad years

Guardian

With an endlessly inquisitive mind writes with great humour ... I suspect it might become a kitchen classic. It deserves to

Ray Connelly, Daily Mail

Obsessive, compulsive, sometimes funny, sometimes scholarly and always carefully detailed... he presents the foul-mouthed energy of the kitchen, all fear and weirdness, in the flat, careful detail of a good New Yorker piece - but brilliantly timed and structured as you'd expect from an editor like Buford, to give life to all that fact

Scotsman

Heat is a book about obsession, written by a man in the grip of one. It is fuelled by food, but food is not its only subject - love, sex, comradeship and terror and pain are all part of the story too

Carolyn Hart, Sunday Telegraph

Now and again a book comes along that deserves the massive hype that goes with it...this book is an incredible celebration of life, humour, passion and devotion to a cause

Sunday Express

There are many fine books on food, but Buford's insane culinary enthusiasm has resulted in a work that is by some distance the best about life among the professionals

Christopher Hirst, Independent

This book will make you hungry - hungry for a follow-up, hungry for good writing in general and, of course, hungry for lunch

GQ

Buford is an engaging and accomplished writer with a sharp eye for the telling detail, and his prose fairly crackles on the page...There's enough luscious description to keep avid foodies drooling and enough beady-eyed observation to deter all but the keenest wannabe chefs

George Rosie, Sunday Herald